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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5744374" data-attributes="member: 54877">@AreoDm, I largely agree with you on codification, but with one caveat. I think some rules codification is fine as long as the design is heavily explored, tested, and explained. The last is what I was aluding to in my previous post. For example, there is no inherent reason why the exact 3E skill list can't be a good choice. There are tradeoffs in any design, and here the authors were clearly going for some kind of compromise position between modeling complex characters versus balance (via class and cross-class skills, ranks).  Likewise, there is no inherent reason why the 4E skill list can't be a good choice. Here, they are clearly going for some kind of split system, where crafting and other such activities are outside the scope of the system, while sneaking and analyzing magic are inside it. But I object to having a 3E skill list without explaining the compromise, when the presentation tries to pretend that craft and use rope are just as valuable as search or diplomacy. And I equally object to having the 4E skill list without explaining the split--and thus some broad guidelines (i.e. not codified) on how the DM should handle a character trying to craft something or use a rope. Now, in fairness, you can't explain everything you didn't do, and why. But you can explain where the lines were drawn, and why. Couple that with some guidelines for handling things outside the scope of the codified rules, and the why for the excluded stuff is fairly obvious. And I guess where I circle back to largely agreeing with your conclusion is that--absent such an explanation--people begin to suspect that there isn't one. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> I know that is how I view the 3E skill system. Commentary on some of the pieces dropped in 4E would seem to indicate that others feel the same about 4E.  In the end, good codification is less about ever increasing scope of rules and more about clarity on the boundaries. Sometimes, the good codification solution is to say, "the rule stops here," and then supplement with some advice on what to do when something outside that comes up.</blockquote>

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